Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt: An Enderstory
by ghostbf
Summary: Kaius is a young Enderman raised among humans for the time he can remember clearly. He remembers flashes of a life before, but all he knows is that it was traumatic. Kaius, in his eighteenth year, is chosen for an exploration program that promises to take him to worlds beyond. Will it bring back memories of a home he's never really known? Does he really know what's to come?
1. The Box of Memory

I remember something like war.

It comes to me in nightmares. I'm scrabbling at the stone under my feet, trying to find shelter, but getting nothing. I hear disembodied screaming somewhere behind me, somewhere far away, but too close at the same time. I wonder if the screaming is mine. I float above my body and watch myself, watch the shaking of my hunched form, watch myself throw up all the nothing in my stomach as my people die behind me.

I wonder, every time I have this nightmare, why such a thing would happen. We as a society were tense. Even as a child I knew that. My skin hadn't yet darkened to jet black, so the scrapes showed prominently on my arms and legs, and I felt the wetness cleanly on my face, even though I didn't feel myself crying. I didn't think I was. I just wanted to run, but my legs were frozen.

Here, everybody brags. Humans brag. Some are kind, but many of them brag. They tell me that if it were them they would have run. I don't think they would have, but I don't tell them. They've never known that kind of fear.

Everybody I know is gone. Everything I love is dead.

I don't remember my name. It disappears in a blush of violet and sparks that burn my hands and eyes.

Then I wake up. I always wake up. I don't remember what happened before or after that, but I do know where I am now. It isn't the home I was born in, it isn't the home that was destroyed, but it is a home.

My home in the Overworld. 7:48 in the morning. The redstone alarm screeching like an alarm siren. My nightmares are the only thing that tether me to who I was in the before-times.

Now I might as well be just like everyone else.

I live in a human village. It's pretty advanced, as the towns go. We have redstone power in every house, and most places have running water. It's well-lit, so there aren't any monsters in the streets when I rise and pull back the curtains, letting in the dim light. It falls on my skin, giving the charcoal-coloured surface some luminosity.

My mother, the adoptive one, calls my name from somewhere across the hall.

"The mail's come in," she says, "Kaius."

I call back and decide to wash first. I pick up my special towel in the tiny bathroom, a single ray of light coming through the raised window, and wipe myself down. No water. Not since a stinging day a few years ago when I tried to make a wish in a fountain but ended up burning my hand.

The towel's dry, but it still does a good job at wiping off the dust, and I don't sweat nearly as much as the humans do. The air is still steamy from her shower when I'm ready to leave, and I wince as I walk out, wishing I could sweep the moisture from the air. But, I remind myself, it's something they need.

The envelope is a buttery yellow. Creamy-soft like the luxury desserts we only have on holidays, when the sky goes dark and I feel something like recollection. I touch it with my fingers, trying to recall something about a black sky and a cream-coloured surface, but she nods and I go back to trying to open it.

I get it open easily. The human kids at school tell me I have long fingers. I've got on a long-sleeved black shirt, the one they tell me makes my hands look even longer. I don't mind it, since it makes me blush, and blushing is a good feeling to me.

She says it before me, brown hair falling over her face, lined with gentle curves that hint at her age. I see her excitement out of the corner of my eye. "You've been chosen." There's wonder in her voice.

Chosen. For a program, or something. I can hardly believe my eyes. Not because I'm happy, and not because I'm afraid, but because I don't know what's coming and it'd be silly to judge before I read the thing.

"Dear Kaius," I read, following it with my surname. "We are pleased to inform you that you have been randomly selected from your class of peers to take part in a Journey - " I pause to emphasize the capitalization - "a Journey to discover new and exciting parts of our world and those beyond it.

"You, the recipient, have proven to be a capable, intelligent, and resourceful person - " I stifle a laugh - "and will give this letter of acceptance to your homeroom teacher at the school you are currently attending to register your name on our list." I pause to take a breath. I'm beginning to stutter. "We hope to . . . to see all of you at our meeting on the seventh day of the month."

She jumps, a little jump, and claps one hand over her mouth. "Kaius! This is wonderful!" She's always had high hopes for me, since the day she took me in. In fact, the first clear memory I have of my life here is the look on her face when I looked at her for the first time. Briefly, and it was painful, and I didn't even look her in the eye, but I didn't look at the floor, either. I still usually do that. I'm happy that she's happy, but I'm still trying to understand what there is to be so happy about.

"What is it, Mom?"

"You haven't heard at school? I would have thought you'd hear it at school." I shake my head.

"It's a field trip of sorts, I think. A long one. Only you'll be the explorers." She grins again. I can't see it, but I can hear the click of her lips pulling apart. "The leaders. The pioneers!"

"Mom!" I'm laughing now, but it's a pensive laugh. "Really?"

"Well, yes." She sounds more serious now. "They need a team of able young adults to do this. Not old folks like me."

"You're not old." I touch her hand lightly. It's very warm against the iciness of mine.

"Oh, stop." She giggles. "You can do this, Kaius. Of course, if you don't want to - "

"I'll do it."

The words surprise the both of us. They seem to have popped out of my mouth without even taking a moment's hesitation. I'm surprised by how much I suddenly want to say yes. Maybe then the other kids will accept me as one of them, and I'll get to feel like my body belongs to me when I see all that scenery. It's such a strange feeling that I've been living with for so long. If I do this, I might not feel so displaced. I'll get to do things I've never done before.

I grab my hat and scarf, the deep purple ones that she says match my eyes. I'm never sure if I like my eyes, given how little time I've spent looking at them. They're very large, and very shiny - the most prominent feature in my face. My nose and mouth are nearly invisible. I wonder if, to them, I'm just as invisible. The sick Enderboy who saw something terrible he can't even remember.

I head off to school after I give Mom a reluctant hug. The trees that line the gravel walkway sway in a slight breeze, and the tiny stones crunch under the light weight of my feet. I feel light. I feel ready. I feel like a Something, something like the rest of my peers, for the first time in my remembered life.


	2. Pushing

We're sitting in Naturals class when my teacher says something I'm not expecting. It's the third of the month.

The desk feels smooth and lukewarm under my hands. I run my thumb along it as I flip through my notebook, reading over my notes.

I've never liked this class much. The only class I love that's on my schedule right now is my photography elective. The other electives? I'd be hard-pressed to remember them. I know that there's one kid in my class who's taking Advanced Building, and another's choosing to specialize in combat. I considered taking Beginner's Combat this year, since it's my last year at school, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to deal with the questions that'd be raised, and anyway, I'm a pacifist at heart.

See, I know there are activities in that class that would chill me to the bone. I know they go out at night, after school hours, like a club, and fight simple monsters. I know kids in that class who look at me in the morning like they wish they had weapons in their hands. Some of them see me as a monster. I know that, and I know that Combat isn't just a leisure elective like photography is. It's serious, it's leading to town defense, and it's centred around the slaughter of people like me.

No, not people. I'm getting off topic. I can't let myself think like this. Reality will warp again and I need to be in this classroom to hear what comes next.

" . . . Endermen - " he takes a quick and cautious glance at me - "are interesting entities and a fascinating topic for this week." The class titters, and I sense some heads turning in my direction. I'm blushing, but it isn't a pleasant blush. I don't feel warm. I just feel uncomfortable.

He continues on like nothing happened. We've never done a unit or special focus on my people. On me, really. We've done creepers, and we've done spiders, and we even read a paragraph about the wither legend, but we've never read about other Endermen. Capital-letter Enderpeople, a culture, fully humanoid. It's strange, hearing this. I press my thumb harder into the pressed-wood surface of the desk.

"Sir, before I forget." I stand, bowing briefly, and place the folded letter on his desk. I notice there are already a couple of them. He nods. Then, "Sit back down."

He posts a picture on the wall. It looks like a painting. In it is an Enderwoman, her face serene, her hands at her sides. I should be embarrassed, because she isn't wearing anything, but my species is relatively sexless from an outside view, and she doesn't look much different from me. We're built differently than humans, even though we are humanoid.

"This," he says, his voice juicy with intellectual poise, "is an Enderman, female variety. She is resting, as shown by her relaxed pose and expression." He unrolls another picture and places it over the Enderwoman before I've finished looking at her. I've never seen such a detailed picture of another Enderperson in this life, even if it is only an artist's depiction. I wasn't ready to see the second one.

My heartbeat speeds up, pounding so hard my vision goes blurry. Nevertheless, I can see what's on the board in front of me. I am in the second row, after all, so it shouldn't be difficult. Yet I've never seen anything like it.

"This, students, is . . . " My mouth is dry, and tastes sour when I touch my tongue to its roof. "A hostile Enderman." He reaches over to point. "Notice the vicious hinge of his jaw. He has been angered, and will not wait to attack." He doesn't even look at me, now. He's on a roll, as he has been before, but I want to reach out and blot out all his words so I don't have to hear any of them anymore.

Hearing him talk like this. Hearing the class take notes, scratching their charcoal sticks onto rough paper. Hearing the same breeze echo outside the building. It feels flimsy, almost like it could fall down if I breathe.

It hurts so much.

"Endermen can attack from a distance by . . . " He clears his throat loudly. "By way of teleportation. They materialize in completely different places. No one knows how they do it. Not even our most advanced scientists." If I weren't so dysregulated, I'd think he's puffing himself up. I could be wrong.

Also. Teleportation?

Before I have time to say anything, or even to think about it, a boy at the back of the class stands up with a loud clatter that kick-starts my heart and nearly makes me cry. Even though I've been alternating between looking at the board and the desk, I have to turn around to look at him.

"Sir," he says, not unlike how I asked the teacher to put down my letter. He's wearing a blue shirt with some sort of stain on it and a pair of jeans as dark as mine. His face is tense with anticipation. The teacher, apparently, sees curiosity, because he sounds satisfied when he calls on him.

"Yes, Solas?"

"What the hell was that?"

The teacher sounds taken aback when he answers. "Who do you think you're talking to?"

"The guy who's supposed to be teaching us, not freaking out students." He swivels and points directly at me. I can only try to hyperventilate a little more quietly. "Kaius, is it?" I nod. "Did that feel weird to you?"

"Uh." The sounds won't come out of my mouth. I'm thinking them, but they won't come. My eyes burn with frustration and embarrassment.

"Of course you are." He nods, looking back at the teacher. I have to keep looking at him, though. I feel like if I don't, I'll fall apart.

I wonder why, all of a sudden, I haven't yet met another like me. I've seen things, of course, flashes in the shadows, figures that looked like me. But in this village, it's bright enough so that no one but the humans really show up on the streets. And since coming here, I haven't really thought about going off the beaten path. If something this inane keeps me from speaking, how could I cope with what lies there, beyond my understanding? Now, though, with the arrival of the letter, I want to push those boundaries.

Even if it's a happy-shining self-destructive thing, I want to push out of the box of memory I've known for years. Realizing this makes me realize, too, that I've tuned out of the conversation, and Solas is calling my name.

"Anyway." He shoves his hands in his pockets and chews his lip in a way that makes me think he's done it for a while. I just look at his lip for a second to know this. After that, it's back to the desk, but I still listen. "How do you know he can't be like us?"

"Well," says the teacher in an exasperated voice. "He's not human, Solas, you know that. I don't mean to be offensive. But he is different. Not worse. Different. Understand?"

He nods, grudgingly. The "grudgingly" is because I like him. I know he doesn't want to bother me. I can see it in the tapping of his foot on the ground. In the restlessness of his whole self.

After class, I go up to him with the same energy in my hands and my feet. I can't seem to stop moving, not since my brain bailed on me. Maybe I am different from them, but it isn't because I'm an Enderman. "You said you were Solas?" I keep my eyes trained on my feet. One of them taps just like his.

"Solas is the name . . . " He laughs, a bright and unexpected thing. "I don't know what the game is."

I'm about to respond in kind when I see the patch on his jacket. A stitched-on patch, bordered in deep red, with the contour of a sword and a bow crossed over each other in the middle. A perfect circle on his left pocket. I know it, not because I have one, but because mine's got a camera, a half-open eye, and a green border.

He notices me looking at it. "Combat major." Best in his class, I remember, but I don't say it out loud. Instead I nod helplessly. "And you're photography?"

"Yeah." I pause, deliberating. "It's pretty cool. This world . . . it isn't that accessible to me. And those photos, they help me touch it. In my own sort-of way." I touch my patch, suddenly self-conscious. Why'd I tell him that much? Not even Mom knows. I don't tell her things like that, since she'd just fawn over her lonely little traumatized Enderman. That isn't what I want for my pictures, but I don't think I've got the courage to say much more.

But he laughs again. It would sound arrogant at any other time, but at this one, I'm just grateful to hear the sound. "Yeah, all right, man." He reaches out to touch the hat that's still on my head. His fingers brush the scarf before falling away completely. "By the way, nice letter. I got mine on there too." He pushes past me and leaves the room.

All the way home, and in my room once I get there, I torture myself thinking about everything I could have done. Damn it! I shouldn't have told him those things. He's the best in the combat class, for God's sake. He probably thinks I'm scum to feed to his iron sword. He must have just been laughing at me.

Now, though, we're together on this trip. And it's starting four days from now, so I don't think there's anything else I can do.

I just have to keep a stiff upper lip in front of him, and try not to act too much like prey. And try not to think too much about the white of the grin I saw so briefly.


	3. Changing

The whole town, it seems, comes to see us off.

There's a huge commotion, lights and bright flags everywhere, whipping in the strong wind. Banners proclaim the name of the celebration, and voices can be heard around every corner. Some families have the names of their children written on posters that drag on the ground when they walk. Vendors sell warm slices of bread and pumpkin pie. Someone steps in a discarded piece and starts to shout. I close my mouth shut.

I'm completely terrified.

I consider pulling out of the whole thing. I consider taking the backpack I've packed and pouring it all out behind one of the food stalls like garbage. I consider all of these things, but I don't get around to any of them, because Solas has caught my eye and he's coming my way.

"Kai!" He greets me, slapping me on the back with an open palm. A nickname? I didn't ask him to use one. "You ready?"

I don't know what drives me to tell him the truth, but somehow it happens and the words fall out. "No. Never. Absolutely not."

He gives a hearty laugh. I realize, smiling nervously, that I had been expecting him to take me seriously. Never mind, though. I'm glad he isn't making fun of me. "Well, I am. And it's just the crowd. We'll be leaving at sundown. You'll be fine."

He claps me on the back again and leaves.

I wonder if I'm having another panic attack. My heart won't seem to slow down, and my face is flushed red. I can feel the imprint of his fingers in my back like I'm made of dark clay and he's left his mark on me. I walk around the stalls some more, trying to kill the time before the sun goes down. I can already feel it. The sky is darkening, and the hue of the mass of clouds has changed to an ominous gray.

Suddenly, feedback screeches over the scene and everything goes nearly quiet. There's still a murmur of conversation in the background, but I can hear much better. The feedback surprises me, though, and I clap my hands over my ears, trying to block it out. I drop to the ground and try to slow down the unraveling feeling in my chest. I stare at the dirty ground. Another chunk of pumpkin pie is smushed into the ground. I grind it deeper in with the heel of my boot until I hear my name through the blockage and pull my hands away.

" . . . Reina Samson, and Solas Xavier." A ripple of applause wakes up the crowd, and I realize I've been called up. Solas turns around and beckons me in with a wave of his hand. He winks at me as I run faster to catch up, and swivels on his heel like a dancer to face the stage he leaps up on.

Even though I'm the last to get there, Solas gets the biggest cheer. He's the golden boy of this town and everyone knows it. The thing I notice as I follow him hesitantly, though, is that there's something brutal in his smile. Maybe it's just the sense of anxiety I seem to be sensing around everything tonight.

The announcer says something about the bravery of this town's youth. "Extraordinary, and extraordinarily human." He flashes us a grin, and I look down, away from all the faces.

"And now, today, we will see them off." Everybody cheers, and we begin to file off the stage. Only I don't. I keep standing there, staring down at my hands, because I've noticed something strange about them. Someone pushes me from behind, and I start moving, but I never take my eyes off my hands. They're _glowing_ , glowing just slightly, and when I lift them to my face, I notice bits of violet coming off their tips like dust. Everybody turns to the crowd to say goodbye, but I focus on the discovery, asking myself a question I'm not even sure if I know how to answer.

 _What does this mean?_

But I'm jarred out of it by realizing something, something terrible. I search the crowd all of a sudden, rifling through the unfamiliar faces with my eyes, trying to find the familiar one. "Mom," I say, and remember that I didn't get to say goodbye.

But we're going. We're going, and it's dark and freezing, and the scarf around my neck whips in the direction of the adoptive home I'm afraid I'll never again see in the same light, and my hands are glowing violet.

Everything has changed now. There's no point in looking back.

But I do it anyway, just to see.


	4. Liminal Spaces

Everybody but me is freezing cold.

We're trekking on the left-hand side of a major cliff, the facade of it rising high above our heads. Tree roots jut out through the dirt, but it's hard to see the defined edges of anything, since it's so cold. I can see my feet moving underneath me, stumbling over the uneven terrain, shifting shadows that don't seem to belong to me or anybody.

Anyway, the cold doesn't seem to have as much bite when it touches me. I realize it as the other kids wince and press their ungloved hands to their faces or stare enviously at my hat and scarf. I consider lending it away, but I refuse myself that small act of selflessness since it'd force me to speak to them and break the silence, and - it'd uncover my shoulders and chin, all the hard bones of them, shoving in the faces of the whole world that I am Other.

It seems like the blackness is closing in on us when I look straight forward like everyone else is doing. If I look up, I see the cliff and the trees clinging onto it for dear life, silhouetted against the dark sky. If I look down, I see my feet shuffling forward to keep in line, pushing tiny puffs of dust up that evaporate into the shadows. But if I look forward, I see everybody walking in front of me, and after them, there's a deep void I can't make anything out from. Looking at it, I can understand the cold the other kids must be feeling. The skin on their bodies is thinner than mine, but maybe the same can't be said about their minds. I don't know them, though. I don't know much of anything.

These are the things I think about. I think about the void, and I think about my hands. If anybody were paying any attention to anything other than the journey, they'd notice the glowing of my fingers and the specks of light drifting off them and dissolving. I look down at them, now, and something seems to come back to me, something that kills the sounds of the outdoors and the scraping sounds of young feet on hard ground. Something that makes my hands feel like they aren't mine. Something that . . .

 _makes me look all around like breath on cold hands it's cold even for this place and I can't breathe it's impossible and she's talking to me in a dialect i understand it was adopted she told me under rippled stone and the thin air of this place and this place is a tomb it's going to fall it's going to crash in on me but she laughs a light sound a wispy sound and tucks me in under the air and nothing and tells me I am afraid for nothing -_

I jump, letting out a little gasp, and half a dozen kids turn around to look at me. I peer down, when their eyes turn back to the front of the group, and realize my hands are glowing brighter now. Did they notice? I hope not. I really hope not. There's a sense of fear that suffocates me as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. I'm suddenly hypervigilant to everything that surrounds me. The sound of a lesser monster moving somewhere in the brush, rustling it, calling out for something. The scent of heady broken pine needles wafting up from the ground. The sour taste of my mouth. I taste something metallic and realize I've bitten down on the inside of my cheek. When I open my mouth, the cold touches it like an icy finger.

"Kaius."

I jump again. _God._ It's embarrassing, jumping around like this each time something happens, but I can't stop. There's something about the setting and the near-silence that makes my heart race for anything.

I look into the face that the voice came from. It's got cheeks that flame red, even though the colour's dulled by the lack of light. A girl, as far as I can tell. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can't seem to recognize her. I focus instead on the concerned look on her face. I get an urge to photograph it, but nothing would show up with lighting like this. I can tell her hair is light, maybe blond or pale brown, and it's nearly the same colour as her face. She isn't the kind of girl the Combat crew would gossip about in the hallways, though. She's plain-looking, with scattered birthmarks that show through the haze of the night. It's for this reason I feel like I can trust her. I don't have any friends at school, or anywhere, really, but there's something about her that makes me feel like she might understand.

"Reina," she says, like she knows what I'm about to ask. I remember her now. Her name was called before mine just a couple of hours ago. I can't be sure about the time, though. "Cold as hell out here, right?"

"Yeah," I manage. I decide not to tell her about the thick-skin thing. She's seen me, and knows what I am, so she's probably got a pretty good idea. "Do you know what's coming next?"

"Well." She gets this hard look on her face, contorting it like she's thinking so intently she can't even see. "I'd guess we need supplies. That backpack." She gestures to my bag, which is partly obscured under the thick scarf I'm wearing. When I step a little ways away from her to let her see, the scarf billows out as the wind starts to pick up again. I can see the whites of her eyes as she scrutinizes it. "Looks pretty small. I'm guessing you haven't got a pickaxe?"

"Pickaxe?" Any anxiety that's ebbed away talking to Reina sweeps back up inside me. "We were supposed to bring - " She interrupts me, but I'm surprised at how quick I am to reply. I rarely talk to the others my age, even if they seem nice like Reina. Maybe it's the night and the fact that I'm near-delirious with sleep deprivation. When I realize that, my arms and legs feel suddenly heavy, and I have to force myself forward to keep up with Reina, who's taking small but determined steps.

"Nah, don't freak out. Nobody's got anything except for the Combats." I look to where her hand points, and notice the paleness of some things hanging off the bags of the kids in the very front. Among them is Solas, I know, but I can't tell which one is him. "That Solas guy? He stood up for you in Naturals, but I honest-to-God don't know why. I mean, look at that swagger." I begin to think Reina's delirious, too, but perhaps she's just talkative. "He's top of the Combats, right?"

I nod. "That's what I heard." I say it noncommittally, but I know it's true. The reason none of these kids are turning back or crying for their parents is because of his presence at the top of the line, and the sword hanging off his pack, not even sheathed. If anything tried to hurt us, he'd kill it. I'm sure everyone is impressed with that knowledge, but I don't know how to feel about it. I've always been a pacifist, as far back as I can remember. There's a reason I took photography instead of Combat. I feel the weight of my camera, an early model that was still the pride of my town, and feel more reassured than I would have if it were a sword even better than Solas's.

"Are you in love with him or something?" She says it loud, and two or three kids just in front of us turn around, scowling. I feel my face heating up again, and a jumble of words pile up behind my tongue. I must have been staring too long.

"No!" I blurt. She just grins, shaking her head so tendrils of her hair fall out of her hood. I shake my head back, but I have a strange urge to laugh. She sticks her tongue at me, and I really do laugh. At this point, I'm so tired that I'm not even embarrassed when the same kids look back. We're blowing quiet raspberries at each other in the freezing night and giggling until the frigid air fills our lungs when Reina stops laughing and looks up.

"Oh, sh - "

There's a scream from the middle of the line, and a lot of heavy footfalls, not at all like the ones I'm used to. A hissing noise slices the air, but it subsides as the scuffling noise picks up. "Sol!" shouts a boy's voice. "Creeper!" I look through my fingers at him, and he's running from a green figure that pulls itself across the ground with four short legs. Its eyes look like black holes from this distance. Reina's not covering her mouth, she's just studying the scene like it's a movie. I'm about to ask her why she's so calm when I see Solas (Sol?) sprinting in our direction, pulling his sword out of its loop and brandishing it in front of him.

The creeper doesn't hesitate. It hisses threateningly, opening its mouth wide, and its eyes narrow. I'm analyzing its face, my whole body alive with concentration, when that face starts to expand. I swear it's about to explode when Solas dodges it, stumbling a little, and swings his sword around to catch the creeper head-on. _Oh._ It screeches, trembles, and falls to the ground, deflated. Sol pulls out his sword, making a wet sucking sound that's audible even at our distance, and wipes it on his pant leg, leaving a streak of something behind. I have the strange and quick urge to throw up, but nothing comes out except for a low, nearly silent moan. He kicks the creeper into the bushes, then tries to wipe off the tip of his shoe.

Nobody claps, or anything. It's the kind of thing you expect to be more graceful when it is. A couple of kids titter about Sol's talent, or his standing in the group, but all I can see is the limp, sickly green body and the residue on Sol's shoe after he moved it out of sight. It was somehow more fast and brutal than I knew it could be. My head is spinning, and it's not because of the cold or the fact that my eyes won't focus for long enough to see much. I don't want to laugh anymore. The secrecy of the night now seems bleak, so bleak it's a wonder we're even in the world that's real.

Reina coughs, a sound that's the most vulnerable thing I've ever heard from her. She isn't looking at Solas or the place where the creeper was disposed of. She's staring at something else, something more significant.

"There." I follow her gaze to the spot in front of our group, a gaping hole in the ground that seems to yawn open. It seems to be a darker dark than the rest of the night around us. It's a place of nothingness, and yet Solas jumps right down into it once he sees Reina pointing. We hear his voice calling up through the fog, the grins wiped off our faces in the face of what we suspect we'll have to do. I hear her again, her voice clear and sharp-edged beside me. "That's where the supplies come from." The other Combats toss themselves down into the hole, disappearing. Some of them let out halfhearted whoops, sounding like they're trying to sound braver than they are. Others seem too tired to make sounds.

I shift the weight of my pack onto my other shoulder and gaze at it for a second. This, right here, is the moment that decides the rest of everything. I'd thought it was going to be dropping the letter on the teacher's desk, but it's this. It's the stepping of my shadow-feet into a dark so thick I can't even see the bright presence of Sol. I calculate mentally the amount of time it'd take for me to walk back alone in this weather, carrying my pack, but then I remember the town defense team and their weapons just outside the limits. Even if I got that far, I'd never get back to the town. They might shoot me with an arrow while I'm looking the other way. They might dispose of my body like they dispose of the common monsters, never knowing, never understanding my memories or dreams. There's nowhere to go but forward.

I step forward, hesitate, then feel a push at my back and am sent sprawling into the dark. I hear Reina jump down beside me. I know there's no going back.

There's no decision to be made. I follow them into the unknown. This could be the death of me, but it could also be the beginning of the rest of my life.


	5. Productivity

"Sol, you got it?"

"Yeah."

I bite the inside of my mouth, but I don't taste any blood. I do it just for something to feel. The air in here is stagnant, not moving at all, and the musty smell makes its home inside my nose. I've been asked before by other (other here meaning human) kids if I even have a nose at all, if I can smell or taste. I know they can't see it, I know they've been told that by adults who only see my people under the hilts of their weapons, but it always hurts a little. Like they're trying to strip me of everything that makes me like them.

It's almost impossible to see. The others are getting restless - scraping around in the dark, feeling the roughness of the stone under their fingers, making the soft sounds of skin on rock. I do it too, reach out. It feels cool, but not icy. The wind can't get us in here, but it howls over our heads somewhere, blowing across the entrance to the cave like when I used to exhale over the tops of empty bottles.

Reina's somewhere beside me. I can feel the heat coming off her. Her silhouette lifts an arm to wipe her brow. She isn't looking at me, and I almost trip over a ledge trying to see where she's looking at. I want to know, in a sense, where we're going.

"Got your camera?" she whispers, and I jump.

"In my bag. I think. If it hasn't been smashed up by now."

A puff of air dashes out of her mouth. A laugh, even though I can't see the form of her face. "Yeah, right. Like we've done anything worthy of smashing up our crap." I look down at my hands, which have taken on a steady glow. I'm willing to bet it's more than just proper moisturization, as fond as my mother was of hand lotion in such a labour-heavy place. If I hold them up to the back of Reina's head, I see the strands of her hair blocking the light, frizzy in the odd air pressure.

"Cut it out, weirdo."

Sol still leads the pack. His bravado is brighter than his skin. He's wearing a shirt that's just slightly different from the one he was wearing in class. He must have dozens, I think, trying to think about anything other than what lies ahead. Kids are swarming around him, talking to him in hushed, excited voices, trying to get into his circle. Even without seeing him I can tell his head is held high, his chin at a cocky angle, daring the darkness to fight.

Then. "Oh, sh - " I hear his nervy voice suddenly shocked by something, tapering off at the end, repeating expletives.

Kids gasp. One boy sounds like he's going to cry, calling out for his leader, his leader who's the same age as him. "Sol? Sol! Where are you?"

"Are you okay?" I call, joining in. Something seizes up in my stomach. We have worse to face than high winds down here, and now it's sinking in. Sol was kind of brash, but he stood up for me, and if he's dead -

If he's dead, then I -

"I'm fine!" he calls from somewhere far away, and is instantly bombarded with screams and "Where are you?"s.

"Down here!" he shouts. I can tell his voice is a little higher than it used to be. My senses have started to adjust better to the darkness, apparently better than anyone else. I push past the throng of fumbling teenagers to find my way at the front, almost falling into a vast hole. Reina follows me cautiously, not joking, just pressing her lips together.

"He's there," I tell everyone.

"Captain Kaius Obvious. Hey, your hands - "

"Hush." I bite my tongue, giving up in a split second on trying to hide my hands. "Anyone have any rope or anything?" I try to project my voice, but it just makes my heart pound harder. It's like shouting into a void. I can just see the outlines of them, and of Sol below.

"Sol carried everything," groans a girl with muscles almost as big as his. I'm about to sigh and rethink it when she suddenly grins, a flash in the blackness. I wonder all of a sudden how I look down here. A pair of glowing, floating hands. Maybe that's why they trust me, and why I managed to speak up. Nobody can see my face. She's grinning, anyway, and slinging her own pack off her broad shoulder. "Everything except the climbing gear."

A few kids cheer. Reina claps once, before cringing and putting her hands away, looking around to see if anyone noticed. "Yeah, not that far," she mumbles under her breath.

I wave her over. "Come help, Rei."

"Rei?" With the help of a couple others, and by the light of my glowing fingers, they untangle the knotted ropes and start feeling around for a place to hook them up. She doesn't look up, just focuses her eyes on the rope. "No one calls me Rei."

"It's short." When the rope's tied to a stalagmite of ridiculous size, I give it a test tug, bracing my feet against the ground. "And easy to use. In a cave like this." I call her name again, echoing it against the claustrophobic walls. "Rei."

"You're the weirdest friend I've ever had," she says, and the pressure of the rock under my feet mixes with the joy of hearing that word. Friend. I try my best to concentrate on it, to hold it like I'm holding the rope (with both hands), but there's a memory surfacing and she can't understand it.

"Rei," I say numbly. The rope goes slack in my hands, which start to shake. Everybody's going to see. They're going to see that I'm shaking. I hide my hands under my scarf, but it doesn't help the twisting in my stomach, the uncomfortable feeling of images poking at the edges of my brain. I can't keep them away. The rope, still clutched in my hands, is scratchy against the bottom of my chin. It feels like a noose. I press my hands deeper into the ground, getting ready to climb down for Sol, and -

 _Run. Go. Hands twisting around each other. Go, run, in a language I barely understand, and I shout something that goes unheard, and I turn around and push my feet into the ground, solid ground with void below, the only land I've ever known, I run and find hell where I run so I run faster, see body parts, see tinted violet smears on the ground, throw up something purple too, wipe my mouth, no time, my family, where is my family? People dying. Enderpeople dying. I do not yet know the word for war. Someone is grabbing my shoulders roughly and angling me back into hell telling me go run go run there are protectors there but I see no protection I see violet I see blood and I see the destruction of my home, End stone and ends of limbs, ends of lives, ends of me maybe, and I, and I -_

Reina slaps me. _Smack_. It's a clean sound in the cave, like the snapping of fingers, like the breaking of a bone in a quiet room. "Dude." The word's casual, but her tone isn't. She sounds nervous, and I can feel her shaking too, standing a foot away from me. The other kids are huddled away from us, seemingly waiting. "Snap out of it."

"They." My tongue won't form the words I need, and I, and I, and I -

"They can't hear you." She flexes the muscles in her forearms, holding me still. My hands still shake, falling out from under my scarf. My face boils with shame that no one can see. Traitors to my body. I wish they were gone. Solas shouts something indignant from below us, kicking at the dirt with his boots, but Reina doesn't even turn.

"Listen," she says, glancing at my long fingers as they twist around one another. Her voice lowers to a whisper, urgent-sounding. "You would probably get this if you weren't always staring down, but I am _not_ a people person." She bites her lip in an uncomfortable silence. I find myself longing for home, for my bed, for the human normalcy of my mother. "Let me continue. I had to learn how to not freak out when I'm around a ton of you, okay?"

"A ton?" I'm trying to figure out how to speak without wanting to throw up or tell her everything or both at once. Regurgitation, that's what they both are. "A ton of Ender - "

"A ton of _people_. Beings," she says firmly, her eyes boring into me through the darkness, her grip tight on my hands. "So I made this up."

"Made what up?" I start to say, but she shushes me. "You're too loud." She breathes in, the whooshing sound of the air slowing my heart, holds the air in her puffed-out chest for a second, then breathes out. I get a puff of carbon dioxide to the face. Her breath smells a little like pumpkin pie and a little like something I can't pin down. A scent that reminds me of my mother, a human scent. That word comes back. _Friend_.

"Four-seven-eight. Breathe in for four, hold it for seven, let it out for eight."

"Eight sounds hard," I say, regaining my balance and adjusting my pack on my shoulders. The bones there ache where they jut out into the straps. My camera's a reassuring weight, though, and it helps ground me without reminding me of much. I remember this much - when I ran from home, I ran with nothing but the skin on my hands and heavy, raw fear. I start to climb down, my hands still trembling a bit, Reina's words echoing in my head.

"Hey, Kaius is going down," shouts a gruff boy from above me. I hear Sol shifting impatiently below. I wonder if he ever feels afraid. The photography patch is still on my jacket. The landscape of the cave is rough under my feet, and I have to be careful, but my extra-long legs let me navigate it in the dark. "Where is he?" I realize I can see the bumps in the wall, as I make my way down, but he can't. None of them can. Purple light reflects on the deep gray stone I'm facing, the only light to be seen.

Then the slamming starts. The wall shakes at its core, rumbling like there's a beast inside. _Hey,_ I want to shout, _there's enough beasts in here already!_ I glance down and Sol's bag is open. He braces a pickaxe against his shoulder before swinging it down into the ground. There's string laced around his knuckles, probably more as a place to hang the string than any kind of protection for Sol. Little pieces, clouded by dust, start to fall off the wall before I'm even close to the bottom. I don't protest, just breathe as slowly as I can, counting in my head as I manoeuvre down to the ground. "It's safe," I call weakly. The breathing doesn't keep the rapid heartbeat at bay, but it loosens the knot in my belly, and helps me open up my eyes.

Other kids start to follow us. Reina hops down beside me, jamming her hands into her hips the moment her feet hit the ground. I can see the anxiety in her if I look hard enough now, look beyond the particles drifting languidly off my fingertips. I'm really starting to feel like we could be friends, even though the feeling isn't familiar.

After a few minutes, the others start to get impatient. "Sol," suggests the lackey of his who'd screamed his name when he fell, "are you hurt?"

Sol shakes his head mutely before breaking off an even larger chunk of stone from the wall. His arms move brutally when he does it, like the wall's a living thing he wants to kill. There's no glimmer in his eyes, no reflection of my own.

The boy persists. I start to get fidgety myself, running my fingers along a sharp piece of rock that had fallen off. "Are you gonna be long? We want to - "

"Then go on without me," snaps Sol, before breathing in quickly and lowering the pick, giving the boy an apologetic look through the fog. "I didn't mean it like that. But I'll be a while."

"What are you looking for?" suggests Rei, coming up from behind me, her hair full of dust.

"Iron. Good iron." He spits somewhere in the void, and Rei wrinkles her nose so intensely that it almost makes a little sound.

An idea comes to my head, maybe born from all the slow breathing I'd been doing. Or maybe it's a side effect of the dusty air. I can't tell. My hands reach out to the wall, skimming its surface. My eyes open as wide as they can, casting a soft glow down. They search for even the tiniest shine.

"Bioluminescence."

"What?" I glance over my shoulder, breaking my stride for just a little. _If Sol can't find it, maybe I can._ Then again, I've never seen iron ore before, not in person. In Deep Earth class maybe. Bioluminescence is definitely a Naturals thing, though. Glow-in-the-dark properties found in nature. The one who said the word turns out to be the boy, the lackey of Sol, tapping his feet against the rock-scattered floor among the others. Their restlessness makes me want to move faster, make everyone happy, but he makes me stop.

He opens his mouth again. "Bioluminescence. That's how your eyes and your hands glow, right?"

My heart leaps, but settles as I realize he's no threat. He's lanky, with bony wrists and shoulders like mine, and he looks bookish. I turn back and keep searching, but my hearing picks up his words no problem. My anxiety's fading. Reina's breathing actually works. I look over my shoulder to thank her, but she's lost in the throng of impatient kids.

"Yeah." I keep my eyes forward, focusing on that. I feel a different way than I've felt for years, but I can't put my finger on the word. I can't describe the feeling, really. I'm not so good with things like that. I can take an okay picture, though.

Now _there's_ a way for me to help everybody move forward. That way I can move back into the tail of the crew, letting Sol move on and trying my best to figure out how I feel in words I can say out loud. I can't call it pride. The feeling is too modest.

Reaching backwards, I unzip my pack and pull out the instant camera, angling it without most of my usual care, just looking for an image. The flash goes off and a tiny slip of paper falls out. I wave it in the musty air for a second to let it develop, then hold it close to my eyes. There, in the top left corner of the photo, sparkles a tiny piece of iron ore, sticking out of the wall. I'd never have spotted it without the camera. I reach up and touch the wall where it is, and call Sol over so he can dig it out. Maybe my vision's unreliable because of the darkness, but I could have sworn he flashed me one of his famous smiles before hacking it out of the wall. Several kids exhale behind us as my heart warms. I don't even need the hat and scarf, but I keep them on for safekeeping. We don't have to be trapped anymore, though. Maybe we'll slog on through the cave, grab some supplies, forge history. I'll be the first Enderman in the Nether, in the places beyond even there. But nobody's going to point it out. I'll be just like one of the others, here in the dark. It'll be just my voice, not my face, not the violet that gives us light here.

Sol brings the pick, hefted high above his proud head, down on the chunk of iron. The wall gives a little, but nothing falls. I'm listening for it even as the sound of the impact crashes into me. Sol does it again, grunting as the weight of it presses down on the muscles the whole town admires. I admire him, even through my fear, but I wonder again if he's afraid.

I don't get time to ruminate. On the second impact, the wall gives way, and a light so blinding it overwhelms my dark-adjusted eyes pours through the cracks and bathes us all in stark illumination. Stark contrast.

The image of everything we'd run away from. I drop the photo of the wall in my shock, even though nobody's screaming. Everybody cranes their neck and squints their eyes. The photo drifts on the thin air, falling down and down and down, and slips through the hole Sol made. It falls to the ground, sinks into something undulating and bright. Burns up.

Turns into smoke, the useful-for-a-second single glimmer, incinerated.


	6. You Deserve It

I have always been this.

Never in my life have I been anything else. That's how it feels when I'm on the surface, in the Overworld, in this life I've built for myself.

I have never, for example, seen my fingers glow so brightly. I have never felt my heart pound and known it was from something real, a real threat, coming to hurt me and those around me.

That's how it feels right here, even though I know it's wrong.

The lava sizzles, screams. A couple of kids try to run, but only bump into each other, blinded by the sudden light, like an instant sunrise. Sol's pick clatters to the floor, and a drop of lava falls onto it, searing a black hole into the handle.

I don't think, don't plan. My hands move on their own. I reach down, my knees bending and jutting out into the throng of kids around me, and my hands brush the ground just in front of me. Then they glow, brighter and brighter, particles swirling out from Notch knows where. Then the stone is in my hands in a perfect cube, leaving an indent before me. I leap forward just as the lava is about to spill onto a wordless Solas and shove the block into the hole with strength I've never before felt in myself.

Reina is the first to talk, raising her voice over the fiery popping from beyond the wall. A crack of radiant orange light can be seen where the block touches the sides of the hole, but that's all, and Solas is safe.

"I think I can speak for all of us when I say, holy shit."

I let out a nervous laugh. Some other kids try to laugh, too, but they're staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. I try to brush it off like Reina's brushing off the dirt that landed on her when I pulled out the block. "Sorry," I mumble, moving back behind Solas, giving him back the front spot.

"No, Kaius." He shakes his head, grabs my wrist, doesn't let me go. His fingers are calloused but warm where they touch me. I'm suddenly conscious of how cold my skin must be. "Stay here. That was sick. We, you know, we might need that." He tips his chin up like so many of the human boys do when they're feeling heady and sure. I know he isn't, though. I can feel it, feel his lingering terror, with the particles of violet still swirling around me like dust motes. He must have been so scared. I clutch his hand back, try to let him know how much I understand what fear is.

 _I accepted this trip. I can do it again._ "S-sure," I stammer. But all I can feel is the pressure of his hand on mine. Something blows open inside me, and I feel like I can do anything. Be anything. If he's there. Maybe his confidence is rubbing off on me?

His face breaks into a familiar cocky grin, lopsided and startling in the dim light. "Nice!" His voice isn't shaking so much anymore. "You guys, I know what we're going to do."

He turns away from me, breaking our hold, and for a moment a tiny wave of disappointment washes over me before I remember to listen. "First of all, that was definitely lava."

A few kids laugh, but most of them stare at him intently, myself included.

"You guys all took Naturals or Deep Earth, right?"

"We didn't get to finish the semester," says a kid uneasily. When I turn, I see it's Sol's old shadow, and feel a twinge of jealousy. A few more particles appear in the dank air, but no one seems to notice. Sol's intensity, fueled by his near miss with the lava, is captivating.

"Doesn't matter." He gestures widely with his arms, grinning again. "We all learned it at the beginning. We're all eighteen. _When lava meets water, there's . . ._ "

"Obsidian!" cries a middle-of-the-group girl I've never seen before, and can't quite see in the dark.

"Exactly!" Sol crows, and we shift where we're standing, full of anticipation. "So all we need is - "

"Water." I say it before I know I've said it. He claps me on the shoulder, a warm touch that jolts me awake.

"That's it!" He punches the air. "Let's spread out and look for it!"

Most of the group starts to dissipate, energized by Sol's shout, but not me. I stay near him, listening carefully to the wall. The lava's creating a lot of noise pollution, though, and it's hard to hear. Sol reaches for my arm again, and that I notice, every bit of it.

"Kaius," he begins, "do you know what happened back there?"

"I - " I stammer, wanting to let him know, but I can't put words to it. My human mom never told me anything about what it meant to be an Enderman. She raised me as her son, as she'd raise her human son. I don't know if she ever expected this, or if . . . if she'll ever know. I push that thought out of my mind with great effort, breathing in rhythm like Reina taught me, and shake my head. "I don't know." The confession hangs in the air for a moment.

"I'm . . . a combats major, you know," he goes, and I swallow, hoping not to be reminded of the creeper he killed and kicked away on the way to this cave. But he doesn't stop there. "And I've seen a lot of monsters.

"Not suggesting that you're one!" His eyes widen, reflecting the faint glow that I and the lava give off. "But I've seen a lot of Endermen, too, just walking around, in the nighttime. And they do that. Pick up blocks, I mean. The Naturals class isn't that great for mobs. They only really teach hostiles in full when you're in Combats." He wipes his brow, listening to the wall for a second, before returning his attention back to me. "And I've seen your kind. I've seen them . . . pick up blocks like that, and move them, but never to save anyone." He just looks at me for a second, just us, alone in the particles and the dust. "Thanks, by the way. I totally owe you."

I shrug, nervous. "It's fine. I didn't even mean to do it. But - " I pause, my heart racing. "I would! I'd do it again, if I could, and there was lava, and . . . "

Sol starts laughing, a deep belly laugh, brash but innocent somehow. He grabs me by the shoulders and I shut my mouth, feeling ridiculous. I hope I haven't made a fool of myself. I blush deeply, the warm flushing sensation that I'm used to, a good thing. "Calm your shit. It's fine. I'm glad you did it, too."

I laugh too, not daring to move before he does. He takes his hands away like they mean nothing and starts to listen again, kneeling to retrieve his pick from the ground, feeling around with open palms. I can feel the vibrations of it under my feet. When he picks it up, the blade scraping the rocky ground, I feel that too.

"Hey," he says, in the middle of getting up, "did you hear that, too?"

I shake my head, hyper-attuned to the world where he interacts with it. Then I shake off that feeling too, wanting to help as best I can, but it's hard. "Not really. What was it?"

"Someone's yelling." He turns around and starts to make his quick, unafraid way down the cavern, deftly navigating. My long legs, longer than his even, help me catch up in no time, though I have to take more care because of how it's strewn with stalagmites and cave rocks. "In a good way," he calls back to me, his face outlined in profile against the absolute blackness of the beyond, "they're yelling in a good way!"

"We need your pick," says the boy who spoke to me about bioluminescence.

"Did you find it?" says Sol as he hands it over, although he hangs onto it a little, wanting to hold his creation.

The boy nods. "Water sounds. Right behind there." He slams the pick into the rock, and after a few minutes, a stream of water seeps out. Some of the other kids line up to drink some - they exclaim when they do, shouting about how cold and fresh it is - but I stay back, not wanting to get burned. I stay close to Sol instead, who just licks his lips. "Find anything else, Elan?" he asks, and the boy nods again. "Some coal. Got a flint and steel?"

"Got 'em." Sol lights the makeshift torch Elan's made. "Where'd you get the stick?"

"They were all over the floor," Elan mumbles confusedly. "Why, is that not a thing?"

"Not in caves," says Sol, but the torch suddenly bursts into flame and throws the faces of everyone around me into sharp relief. A collective _whoaaahhh_ goes up from the group, and Sol leaps into the forefront of it.

"Up there! There's extra light. Maybe it'll lead us to above the lava. Let's go spill some water!"

Everyone follows him, clamoring for his attention, but I see something different. Even when we get to the overhang above the lava lake, I don't flinch back from it. And when we break the wall so that the water spreads out over its boiling surface, hardening it almost instantly, I ignore the vestiges of strength still remaining in my skinny arms. The steam curls and floats into shapes on the ceiling of the cavern before it disappears, evaporating into the air, humidifying it. Sol wipes his brow over and over so effortlessly, using the shoulder of his fitted shirt. I watch Sol as he pulls the obsidian out from over the lava with the help of four other strong-willed kids. He tries to enlist me, but I shake my head, not knowing how to do what I did again, or even understand it.

I want to talk to him, though. He's seen other Endermen? He's never told me that before. I want to know them, their customs, who I am inside. But I also want to know him. Paralyzed by indecision, I stand by until they've constructed a rectangle of obsidian chunks in the cavern wall, lit only by the faithful torch that Elan holds just as loyally. I wonder if Elan has ever felt the way I do now. But that feeling is wiped away the moment Sol tells me to use his flint and steel to light the obsidian, even though I remember from Deep Earth class that it doesn't burn. He looks so hopeful, so I indulge him, my elongated fingers fudging the movements needed to make sparks. When I finally succeed after six or seven times, the darkness is cut through with a violet glow, a glow that for once isn't my own. Sol stands back, gasping for breath, heat and satisfaction radiating off him. He claps me on the back, and I gasp, but he doesn't notice - it's washed away by the odd soundwaves coming through the rectangle Sol's built. "They told me," he breathes, "that one day I could get to be the first to build one of these."

"You did," I smile. "But . . . you told me to light it."

"Yeah." He stretches his back, stretches the muscles in his arms, stretches his whole body, taking up space. His hands keep bumping into my chin and my jawline, even in the low light. "Our town's very first Nether portal."

"Didn't you . . . didn't you want to be the first? They told you . . . " I can't get the words out right, not with the portal's noises vibrating in the air all around us.

"You deserve it." He steps up in front of me, looking over his shoulder, his profile illuminated by a line of purple that lights up his eyes, making them flash with excitement. "For saving my life."

The yawning, violet opening of the portal groans in an otherworldly way, then lets out a long sigh. Particles like mine fly out of it, a whole flurry of them. The swirling surface ripples and undulates, distorting Sol's features where he stands inside it, and when I blink once, he's disappeared.

I am the first to follow him, before even Elan or any of the other, stronger kids who normally flank Sol. Right now I am ready for anything. The flint and steel have lit something in me, too, I think, something bright and burning. My hands, shining violet, mix with the violet of the portal. I close my eyes before it takes me, buoyed by Sol's words, by the power and the strength of them, and something else, too.

 _I deserve it._

 _For saving his life._


End file.
